


Relapses

by SonjaJade



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 19:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miroku's made a grievous mistake, and it just might cost him everything he's worked so hard for. Post canon, rated T for language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

***I don't own the series InuYasha or the characters within***

* * *

A/N: this was a 3 part contest piece I wrote when I was still in the mir/san comm on lj. I was going through my thumbdrive and saw I hadn't published it, so here it is!

* * *

It was amazing how fast word had spread… Somehow one of the drunkards that Miroku had caroused with that ill fated night had made it into the village the monk called home, had made it there before Miroku did. And once the teahouse owner caught wind of what that dirty, rotten, no-good, swindling monk had done, she wasted _no time_ in making sure that the rumors made their whispered way back to Sango.

Miroku knew the minute he and InuYasha walked into the village that he was probably going to be meeting his wife alone in their house, and he would be reacquainting himself with Hiraikotsu, right up the side of his stupid head. He fell silent as they walked on, InuYasha only commenting quietly, "They're whisperin'… wonderin' if she'll kill you right away or make you suffer."

Miroku sighed. "And she would have every right to do either." The path they were on split, and InuYasha went to the right towards the house he shared with Kagome and his tiny daughter, while Miroku slowly plodded his way to the left, afraid of what he may find or not find when he arrived there. What if she's already gone? What if she really was waiting to kill him? He tried to not think about it, and when he arrived at his home, he spent a few minutes gathering himself before raising the bamboo mat and going in.

Sango was sitting by herself in the middle of the hut, occasionally stirring a pot of rice and working on mending one of the boys' jubans. She didn't even look up at her husband as he walked in. Miroku could tell that she was upset; the way her jaw was set and the scowl that marred her pretty face was all the evidence he needed to see.

He said nothing, afraid that anything he said might set her off. He settled his shakujo in its usual corner, and then stepped up from the genkan and sat across the fire from her. The silence between them hung heavy and uncomfortable in the air, and finally, he found the courage to say something, _anything_ , just to break that awkwardness in the room.

"Where are the kids?" he said as non-confrontationally as possible.

"With Kagome." She said nothing else, stirred the rice angrily and went back to her sewing.

"Why are they there?" He knew feigning ignorance would _never_ work with her, but he couldn't let the conversation just stall out.

She raised her head and glared at him. Without answering him, she went back to her sewing, finished the series of stitches, folded the garment and put it on top of the chest along the back wall. Miroku hung his head. She knew, and she was very understandably _pissed_.

"Honestly, houshi, I didn't expect you to return home." She'd called him houshi… Now he knew it was bad. Very, very bad. "But I'm willing to bet you have an explanation, so why don't you tell me what happened." She crossed her arms over her ample chest and waited for him to tell her his side of this horrid story.

Miroku swallowed once and began. "I am going to tell you the truth; I won't try to cover up what I did, just so you know."

"I think you owe me the truth, monk." Her eyes had narrowed. Gods…

He nodded and continued, "InuYasha and I had gotten a room at an inn in the last town, and I told the owner if I could rid his establishment of the ghost that was hiding in the upper rooms, he could put InuYasha and I up for the night and feed us rather than paying with coins." He looked at her to see that she was listening. "Well… we dispelled the ghost, and the innkeeper honored our agreement. Just as we were getting our meal, the room next to us began to get loud with excitement, and the people there were drinking and watching some girls dancing."

Sango's eyes fluttered, clearly seeing where this story was going. She put her hand up and interrupted him. "And let me guess, you joined them." He lowered his head and took a deep breath. Miroku nodded sadly. "And you drank too much again didn't you?" He nodded again.

"You slept with one of the girls." She reached across and jerked his kesa. "Didn't you?"

Miroku couldn't answer her. He was choked with fear… even after birthing him five children and being out of practice with her weapon, he knew she could kill him with her bare hands if she so chose to. She slapped him as hard as she possibly could, a red welt in the shape of her hand rising quickly to his tanned cheek. Finally, tears rolling from his violet eyes, he nodded minutely.

"You swore to me you would never!" she bellowed. "You told me when we got married that you would _never_ bed another!"

"It was a mistake, Sango!" he said as he raised his arm to block another strike from her furious hands. "I know I can't ever take it back, but it was a horrible, horrible mistake!" He scooted away from her as his feet finally found purchase on the smooth wood floor beneath him. Before he escaped her completely, she landed a light punch to his chin.

Gasping from the effort of momentarily trying to destroy her husband's face, she suddenly stood up and walked away from him, pacing around the room for moment. Then just as suddenly, she fell to her knees weeping. Miroku didn't know what to do; he'd never been on the receiving end of her wrath like this before. He stared at her, silent tears rolling down his face and scared out of his mind.

"How… H-h-how could you?" she sobbed. "I've given up so much to stay here and care for our babies and take care of our house and our garden… And after all this time, I really thought I could trust you, and that you were such a good husband and father." She wiped uselessly at her eyes. "What kind of example do you think this will set for our sons? What will our daughters think? There's so much more at stake now then when it was just you and me…"

"Sango, I have never touched another in many, many years, not since before I asked you to be mine forever. This was a terrible mistake, and meant absolutely nothing to me." He wanted to go to her and comfort her and make everything alright again. "If I'd had my wits about me it never would have happened."

She finally dried her tears, and began to gather some things. "I have to get out of here for a little while."

He watched her, now nearly panicking that he'd sent her away for good. "Where are you going?" he asks in an almost childish whine.

"I don't know," she says as she tied the furoshiki about her shoulders. "All I know is I have a lot of thinking to do, and a rather big decision to make." She caught his eyes, her heart breaking at what those violets used to mean to her, and what they now meant to her… "I need a little time, please don't come after me." She stomped across the room to leave, and Miroku got shakily to his knees.

"What about the kids?"

Sango shoved her feet into her zori and then turned towards him. "You decide. But if you leave them with Kagome you will pay her for watching them, or find a way to compensate her for her time. She's been nothing but good to us, and I won't have you fucking that up too." With that, she grabbed her wakizashi from the rack on the wall and slid it in her waistband, then left.

It was then in the sudden quiet of his home that Miroku realized he had a rather big decision to make as well: to live through this or not…


	2. Chapter 2

When he found her, there was no time to tell her how worried sick he'd been. There was no time to tell her about the modest sum of money he'd left with Kagome in exchange for watching their children two days ago before he set out to find her. There was no time to tell her about the countless people he questioned in trying to find her. There wasn't even time to simply think of how he was almost too late… He had to save her, and he had to do it now.

He could see from the wounds she carried how the attack against her had gone: the gouge in her bleeding shoulder likely the first move from the oni that jumped her in the dark woods, the four long gashes across her middle probably a swipe from where she'd blinded it… But now she laid motionless and groaning at the foot of a large tree, a tree he'd witnessed her flying into. Faster than he'd ever thought he could manage, Miroku bounded across the wooded area, sutras flying and shakujo spinning. Fighting without the wind tunnel was hard, but he was going to do whatever it took to bring the ogre down and save his wife.

"How dare you touch her, you bastard!" he cried as he connected the head of his staff with the creature's jaw as hard as he could. The sound of cracking bone was clearly heard over the din of the battle, and the oni bellowed out in pain. The thing stumbled backwards, then made to squish Miroku with one of his humongous green feet. Miroku braced his staff against the ground, pointing the sharpened end straight up under the giant's sole. When the oni stepped downward with all his might, the shakujo went straight through, severing a large vein and causing icky black blood to spray out from the wound.

Sango looked up in time to see that her husband had managed to corner the thing in a tight grove of trees, rendering it virtually helpless. She watched as he scrambled up into a tree, grabbed one of the heavy vines, and swung out and around the thing's neck. The roaring monster tried to yank and pull at the makeshift noose, but it only succeeded in making it tighter. Before long, it went limp and quiet… Miroku had choked the vile thing to death.

He hit his knees as he came to Sango's side. "Are you alright, Sango?"

"I knew you'd come after me…" she said with a weak grin, "even though I told you not to."

He brushed her bangs from her face. "You didn't think I'd let you go without a fight did you?"

"And what a fight it was," she chuckled lightly before falling unconscious. He leaned down and kissed her softly on the forehead, then held her limp body close to him. His tears were held in check; after all she'd been banged up worse than this. He just sat and rocked her and took in her scent and the weight of her body, now safe in his loving arms.

He kissed her again before shifting them to a more comfortable position against the tree Sango had been thrown into. "I might have made the biggest mistake of my life, but that doesn't mean I don't want to fix this somehow. Please don't ever leave me again, my sweet, sweet Sango." The backs of his knuckles grazed her bruised cheek gently. "I'll fight the gods themselves if it means I'll never lose you again."

For the rest of the night, he held her close, protected her, kept her safe, watched over her condition in the night… and still he wondered how he was ever going to atone for his sin. Would she ever forgive him? Could she ever not look at him and see a dirty lecher? He prayed through the darkness as he fought sleep in order to care for her, and prayed that somehow his marriage could be repaired.


	3. Chapter 3

It was early morning, but it was still pretty dark. She could hear the birds singing and the rabbits and other critters moving all around in the dewy grass. She could smell the freshness of dawn coming, that fresh, cool, wet smell that reminded her of the times when the inutaichi roamed the countryside; that time before Naraku was gone and the only thought that occupied her mind was how to save Kohaku. Her earthy brown eyes fluttered open, and she saw Miroku slumped against the trunk of the tree they were near, his chin resting on his chest and lightly snoring. Sango became aware then of the pain in her body, and the memories of the day before came flooding back in crystal clarity.

She tried to move and only succeeded in wincing sharply, waking Miroku who was instantly trying to tend to her. "Try not to move, I think you've got some cracked ribs."

"But I have to pee," she whined as she continued to try to get up.

"Here, let me help you," Miroku said as he pulled her to sit up, then gently hefted her bottom so she could stand. He was on his feet in an instant following behind her to assist if need be while she relieved herself. When she was finished, she looked into his concerned face acted as if she were about to say something, then grunted and moved past him to find where her short sword had fallen so they could make their way back to the village.

"You were going to say something, you shouldn't feel like you can't talk to me," Miroku grumbled.

Sango looked at the ground, blinking, getting her thoughts in order before she spoke. Finally she turned and said quietly, "Do you remember anything about her at all? About what happened?"

Miroku closed his eyes, obviously not wanting to answer such questions, but he surprised her and gave up what little information he could remember about the night he slept with one of the dancing girls at that inn. "She was bony. And stupid. She kept asking me about some of the words I used when I spoke. Of course, the more I drank, the more I sank to her level of intelligence…" He sat down on a fallen tree and motioned for her to join him. "I can't begin to tell you how I felt when I woke up the next morning and found her still laying beside me… I knew as soon as I became aware that she was still there that somehow you would know immediately, and I couldn't bear the thought of seeing you cry because of something I'd done to you. I mean… after everything we've been through and all you mean to me, I can't believe I let this happen." He looked over at her. "As much as I have cut you to your soul, I have cut myself twice as deep; I would never, ever want to hurt you, but I did, and it kills me that I did."

Sango saw the tears in his eyes and felt the pain in his voice. She saw that he had balled his hands into fists, something she'd learned a long time ago meant he was frustrated and upset. She saw how his brows furrowed in regret, how his jaw was set in such a way that he almost looked defeated. She almost missed that he'd started speaking again. "So where do we go from here? Do you want me to leave? I'll still take care of you and the kids until… until you let… another… take my place." Oh, she felt how that hurt him. Just the tone of his voice gave him away, but even if she hadn't heard that, the slight waver at the end was enough to draw tears to her own eyes.

She didn't trust herself to speak just yet, so she shook her head no, and her hand blindly sought his. He took her small and calloused hand and squeezed it tightly in his. For a long time they neither one said anything, just held each other's hands as the right words refused to come. Miroku scooted a little closer to his wife and murmured, "I am emphatically sorry for what I've done to you, for what I've done to our marriage and our family."

She turned to face him and saw that he'd lost the battle with his tears. Sango thought for a moment, tried to imagine what he life would be like without him in it, and found she didn't like how it made her feel. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to be with someone else, or even how it would feel to be just her and the children all the time. She could barely stand for him to be gone for a week, how would she manage if he were gone forever? She looked again at the face she'd come to love above all others… Sango knew that he was sorry, knew that it would never happen again, and knew she would have to find a way to forgive him.

And that's when she realized something… If she could feel his pain about what he'd done, then surely their union, their marriage, their… connection, went deeper than just joining their lives together. It meant Miroku was really something special to her, and that if he hurt this badly considering what he'd done, then she was something truly special to him as well. Would she let some bony, stupid whore come between a soulful connection that seemed to be written on the stars themselves? Would she really allow such a waste of space to rip their loving family apart?

She found if she turned this around in her head, that if she thought of the whole night as a trap for her hentai hoshi, that it was easier to accept what had happened. Sango knew he had a weakness for wine and entertainment, always had since she'd known him. She also knew that if he hadn't been so intoxicated, he certainly would not have slept with that idiot woman. She found that if she looked at this from a different angle, it was easy to forgive him, and her heart didn't feel so empty and crushed. It was the fact that thinking this way made _her_ feel better, and it's what led her to forgive him.

She leaned in and kissed his mouth, her hands coming to his streaked cheeks and brushing away stray tears that had fallen. When she pulled away from him, she whispered, "I love you, Miroku. I forgive you. But this must never ever happen again. It hurts too badly to think that this nameless whore nearly tore what we have to shreds. You have to promise me this will never happen again."

"I'll never touch sake again, nor will I ever touch any other woman but you, I swear it on my very life, Sango…" He tasted her sweet lips as he became filled with the relief that this whole mess was now over and behind them, and after a sweet embrace, he helped her to her feet and said, "Let's get going, I want to get our kids and go home and just be a family for a while." Sango nodded with a smile and took his hand, and together they set off for their crowded house in the village.


End file.
